recycled ideas in movies

Do you sense a lack of originality in movies these days? Are fans to blame for helping this along?

What are your thoughts?

ThePunisher wrote:Do you sense a lack of originality in movies these days?  Are fans to blame for helping this along?

What are your thoughts?

Yes there is a lack or originality but it is hard not to compare newer films today to others in the past especially when they use the same elements and when the older film did it better than what we are getting now…. That is probably my biggest problem with films today, I think using elements that have been used before can be done well or feel refreshing or can reinvigorate the idea or concept as long as it’s done better or has a different spin than what came before it.

I think fans are desperate to see their favorite film series continue or movies that inspire and entertain…..I don’t think we are to blame for recycling ideas or for terrible ones used in some of the horror movies, big franchises or one and done films today …. That blame falls on the the studio’s who allow them to go back or start production rushed or with barely a concept…. These films will always have to fall on what’s been tried and true……. It’s why most of the films repeat themselves thematically…… But also on the other side of that coin when something works don’t fix it…..and one of the biggest problem in today’s entertainment industry  is trying to “fix” things that work with added forced preachy political agendas or gender / race swaps to fix “problematic” issues….
Progress for the sake of progress doesn’t make for good story telling. When things are not forced and feel organic and natural that’s when you brew a successful and offer entertaining story.

I think we specifically Horror fans will always agree we want these stories to bring something new to the Horror franchises or films but still want it to fall in line with what we loved about the original film and keep our favorite elements from prior films, flipping a concept on its head is one thing but if it doesn’t even resemble the original elements of what made us love them in the first place …..stray from the formula too much and you might as well be making a romantic comedy not a Horror film lol.

I tend to look at things a differen't way... What even qualifies as originality today? We're five years away from the 100th anniversary of the first film to feature sound. There's been a lot of movies filmed in the last century, and quite frankly, there's only so many settings, plots, and story beats to work with. Pretty much everything that can be done has been done and horror is no exception. Even a film that's 90% original is going to resemble a movie that came before it in some way. A different group of misfits bumbles their way to the wrong place at the wrong time, a Slasher villain with a differen't brutal backstory, a differen't gruesome murder that leads to a young families new home being haunted or a differen't cult worshiping a differen't demon, or a differen't global disaster that leads to the Zombie Apocalypse. There are only so many stories to tell, so what matters is how you tell them and how you twist that story into being your own. I don't blame fans for liking what they like. The only fans I blame are the type who'll complain about lack of originality, get something differen't, and then complain because it's not enough like the older version of the thing they liked, and vice-versa.

The only films you can really call 'original' are often the odd surreal types that really go out of their way to be differen't. These films don't really do much for me, and often hardly even feel like horror movies. Films like 'Antlers' for example. If you really want to watch something that feels original, I'm afraid you may have to be willing to read subtitles. It's amazing how often I'm looking for a good horror move to watch, and I'll finally find something that sounds interesting to me, an it winds up being an Asian film or from some other foreign country. These films tend to feel differen't because the filmmakers are drawing inspiration from an entirely differen't culture who have their own traditions and legends completely foreign to movie fans in the west.

I don't feel like sticking to the formula that works is a bad thing, but you do have to be more creative than just cop pasting what came before you.

Anymore, you almost have to mix and match icons to create something different, but even then it's been done. I watch the fan films of both Friday the 13th and Halloween and am impressed with some of the content, but mostly the theme is pretty much the same. We can probably say we can write a script that's fresh, but who knows how it would be interpreted, either as a retread or an original idea? But I watch amd rewatch these movies because I enjoy the elements of horror and suspense, whether they be familiar or something new.

I dont see these things as recyling ideas more or less I see it as poor executions with very low moderate drives for them and I think each genre/sub-genre suffers from this idea.

Paranormal aka Ghost driven plots are all the same now...
-Vengeful Ghosts
-Cursed Objects
-One or No Survivors
-Cheap Jump Scares
-Repeated Origins

The issues with this sub-genre is that they lack anything new and worth exploring, I would honestly love to see them do something new.

Zombies arent even being scary anymore with low tier quality productions and now we see...
-Comedic Jokes
-Horrible Gore Effects

Its bullshit...

Slasher Genres can always change and adapt.